ABSTRACT
In any discussion of the beliefs about immortality among Babylonians and Assyrians, our point of departure must be the view which, as the survival of the animistic stage in primitive religion, is common to antiquity, to wit, that life as such does not come to an end. With a conception of life expressing itself in such various forms, we will be prepared to find in the case of the Babylonians and Assyrians a striking continuity between earlier and later views of life after death. Men and animals cease to be productive. Another interesting touch in the poem—reflecting the attitude of Sumerians and Babylonians toward death is the portrayal of the hostility between the two sisters, between Ishtar, the goddess of the living, and Eresh-Kigal, the mistress of Arali. Among the Babylonians we have a tale that evidently belongs to the same category of stories told to account for the presence of death.
